


keep a knife in your pocket

by humanveil



Series: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Lucius/Narcissa, Non-Linear Narrative, Vague Bellatrix/Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-19 16:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: Bellatrix returns from Azkaban.





	keep a knife in your pocket

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a prompt fill for the word combination: mansion, vague, darkness, revulsion.
> 
> I will admit I took ‘vague’ more seriously than the rest, and so this is a bit of an abstract read that has every possibility of leaving you going ????? what the fuck was that ???
> 
> Hopefully you enjoy it anyway!

A celebratory dinner is held the week they come home, the entirety of the inner circle summoned to celebrate the freedom of the Dark Lord’s most loyal.

Lucius offers to host it at the Manor, despite Narcissa’s objections, and so they come; draped in familiar cloaks and sporting masks that glint in the moonlight. Bellatrix is already there, dressed in a formal robe, a corset pulled tight around her thin frame. Hair that had once been sleek and shiny is wild and matted, the array of curls matching the personality she’s always had.

She sits to the right of the Dark Lord, her head tilted to look up at him, her eyes big and brown and beaming. Her mouth is curved in a pleased smile, an apprehensive grin. She leans toward his body, clings to every word he speaks, cherishes every glance and touch he sends her way.

It’s rather revolting, really. Narcissa sits at Lucius’ side, her hand curled around his wrist beneath the table, his palm warm where it rests against her thigh. He’s in conversation with Antonin, but Narcissa doesn’t listen. She’s too busy looking at her sister, too busy watching Bellatrix watch the Dark Lord.

There’s devotion, Narcissa thinks, and then there’s _devotion_. Bellatrix is undoubtedly the second type.

She always had been, of course, but Narcissa thinks there is something different about this. This all-consuming brand of dedication. This _obsession_.

They’ve been at the table for hours, now, and she hasn’t seen Bella look away once. Hasn’t seen her show any interest in anyone other than her lordship.

“Stop staring,” says a voice in her ear, and Narcissa’s gaze quickly shifts to Lucius’ face. His expression is blank, but she sees the question lingering behind grey eyes, the curiosity.

She offers a miniature shake of her head, a silent expression of _later_ , and Lucius returns to the conversation around him.

*

_The room is dark, dark enough that Narcissa can barely see. A faint glow filters in from the balcony, the moon and the stars bright enough to cast the room in shadows, to create vague outlines of furniture, of Bellatrix’s body—resting atop the expensive mattress, covered in an array of blankets, in everything Narcissa could find to keep her warm._

_“Cissy.”_

_It’s barely a croak, barely a whisper. It comes from the body that has barely moved in days—she needs it, Lucius had said, the sleep. But Narcissa had been unable to shake the thought, had been unable to look at her—look at where she rested, where her chest had scarcely moved with shallow breaths—without thinking of death._

_She steps forward, sets the room alight with a murmured word, and hands her sister a glass of water._

*

“She’s mad,” Lucius tells her one night, the words mumbled against her skin, the sentence accompanied by the press of his mouth against her neck, her jaw, her cheek. “That’s all it is.”

Yes, Narcissa thinks, but she also thinks _no_. Thinks, she’s always bloody been mad. Thinks, insane is nothing new. Thinks, this is something different, something inexplicable, something _I don’t want._

“Stop worrying,” Lucius continues, and his touch is feather light when his mouth moves to hers, when his body covers hers.

Stop worrying, Narcissa thinks.

It’s easier said than done.

*

_“How was it?”_

_The question is hesitant, is tentative. Like she doesn’t really want to ask, like she doesn’t really want to know. She stands there, right behind Bella, right behind the mane of curls, right behind the body that looks so fragile, so broken—the body that looks like it could shatter, really, if Narcissa presses too hard._

_It won’t. She knows it won’t. Bellatrix is made of more than that—is made of something stronger than what her complexion suggests, is stitched together with power and determination and talent. She will not break if Narcissa touches her, and yet..._

_And yet._

_“Cold,” Bella answers eventually, the low murmur lost in the wind, and it’s all she says on the matter. All the information she offers._

_It will, Narcissa supposes, have to do._

*

The Manor’s dungeons, as useful as they are, are not soundproof.

They could be, Narcissa thinks, could easily be quietened with a murmured word, but where is the fun in that, her mind adds bitterly, where is the _excitement_.

 _Their pain is half the fun_ , she remembers being told, and she feels the bile at the back of her throat, just as she had then, feels the churn of her stomach, feels the disturbed, desolate hollowness sink in to her being.   

She hears the familiar voice, the shrill shout louder than the rest. Hears the threats shouted as if they were screams of ecstasy, as if they were real reasons to be _happy_.

Bellatrix cackles at the answering scream—deranged, delighted, demonic—and Narcissa remembers that, remembers that laugh, remembers how it had sounded, all those years ago. Remembers the way it had echoed through the walls in a different mansion, how it had lit Bella’s face up, how it had been almost pretty. Remembers how it had been accompanied with a knife, with a cold metal handle in her palm and a shining silver blade. Remembers the advice she had been given, remembers the tilt of her big sister’s voice, the _keep it in your pocket,_ the _use it if you need it_ , the _right through the rib, or the throat, or the stomach, or the…_

There is another cry—louder this time, panicked. Desperate.

Narcissa wonders where she put it.

*

_“How do you feel?”_

_A sharp glance, sent over the curve of a glass. It says more than Bellatrix will, says don’t, says what do you think, says stop asking questions you don’t want the answer to._

_Narcissa sighs._

*

“Discretion is a virtue.”

Narcissa needs not turn to see who speaks, and yet she still looks, still catches Severus’ eye.

“Do you see it?” she asks, because he would, she thinks. He always had. “Lucius thinks I’m losing it.”

“Lucius cares not for what doesn’t concern him.”

“So you do,” she murmurs, answering her own question. It’s said as a statement of fact, and she knows she’s correct when he doesn’t dispute it, when all he does it sigh.  

“You need to stop staring.”

She hums her agreement, but her gaze returns to Bellatrix throughout the evening, to the way she continues to stare, just as she had during that first night back, to the way her existence seems to revolve around him.

Weeks have past, and still, Narcissa doesn’t know what to think.

*

_“He seems... pleased. To have you back.”_

_Bellatrix gives her the same look, the sharp look, the look that seems to appear in her childhood memories more often than it doesn’t._

_“Why wouldn’t he be?”_

_And, well—yes, Narcissa thinks. That’s a valid response._

_She is, after all, his most loyal._


End file.
